A Multimedia Message Service (MMS) is a type of information providing service for creating, sending and receiving text, audio and video messages. A Short Message Service (SMS) is a globally accepted service for enabling the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers. Typically, the SMS allows a maximum of 160 characters to be transmitted. The MMS is a combination of the Short Message Service (SMS) and an e-mail service. Overcoming restrictions related to data size of the SMS and existing media, the MMS allows transmission of various multimedia data such as images, sound and multimedia files as well as text.
Recently, as mobile terminals provide the MMS, subscribers can transmit various images and sound, as well as text, at any time and anywhere. As the MMS function is set as part of a basic menu in the mobile terminals, like the SMS, users can easily use the MMS service.
In addition, the mobile terminals include menus such as an ‘MMS send menu’ and an ‘SMS send menu’. Accordingly, one subscriber can send a message including an image (e.g., a photo) or music to another subscriber using the ‘MMS send menu’. Upon receiving the message, the other subscriber can immediately check the message similar to the SMS.
However, in the related art, in case of image transmission, if multiples files of photos (e.g., 4 photos) are attached and the size of the attached photos exceeds a transmittable size (e.g., 400 Kbyte), the subscriber cannot send the four files of photos at one time. Thus, the subscriber must separately send the MMS message with the four photos multiple times. This is problematic because the MMS becomes quite inconvenient to use. In addition, because an MMS billing scheme bills (charges) a subscriber of the service according to a case-by-case basis or other per use scheme, the subscriber is charged with relatively high communication fees when the subscriber is required to send multiple MMS messages.